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Modifying the Standard Information timestamps (created, modified, accessed) of every downloaded executable to match a randomly selected file from the System32 directory that was created prior to 2013 | ['T1070.006'] |
1) Suckfly's first step was to identify a user to target so the attackers could attempt their initial breach into the e-commerce company's internal network. 2) On April 22, 2015, Suckfly exploited a vulnerability on the targeted employee's operating system (Windows) that allowed the attackers to bypass the User Account Control and install the Nidiran back door to provide access for their attack. 3) After the attackers successfully exploited the employee’s system, they gained access to the e-commerce company's internal network. To do this the attackers used a signed credential-dumping tool to obtain the victim's account credentials. With the account credentials, the attackers were able to access the victim's account and navigate the internal corporate network as though they were the employee. 4) On April 27, the attackers scanned the corporate internal network for hosts with ports 8080, 5900, and 40 open. Ports 8080 and 5900 are common ports used with legitimate protocols, but can be abused by attackers when they are not secured. Based on Suckfly scanning for common ports, it’s clear that the group was looking to expand its foothold on the e-commerce company's internal network. 5) The attackers’ final step was to exfiltrate data off the victim’s network and onto Suckfly’s infrastructure. While we know that the attackers used the Nidiran back door to steal information about the compromised organization, we do not know if Suckfly was successful in stealing other information | ['T1078'] |
After these strings are decrypted, the malware will load a series of Microsoft Windows API calls to be used later on. After these functions are loaded, Comnie determines if it is running within the %TEMP% directory of the victim machine. In the event it is not running within this directory, it will copy itself to %TEMP% and execute this newly created file with an argument of the original file’s path. A total of 64MB of garbage data is appended to this copied file, likely as a way to deter any security products in place that may be scanning files on disk. After running within the %TEMP% path, Comnie will delete the original file. After Comnie has been copied to the %TEMP% directory, it will look for the presence of the ‘DQuit.tmp’ file in this path. It is unclear how this file is used exactly, as it does not appear to ever be written during runtime by Comnie. Comnie continue to enter its installation routine. In doing so, it will attempt to detect the following Anti-Virus products via various techniques | ['T1027.001'] |
This list of strings differs from previously analyzed SofacyCarberp samples, such as the variant discussed in our June 2016 blog “New Sofacy Attacks Against US Government Agency“ that chose from a list of strings .xml, .pdf, .htm or .zip. After establishing that the system has Internet access, the Trojan will gather detailed system information and send it to the C2 server | ['T1082'] |
In April, security researchers in the Microsoft Threat Intelligence Center discovered infrastructure of a known adversary communicating to several external devices. Further research uncovered attempts by the actor to compromise popular IoT devices (a VOIP phone, an office printer, and a video decoder) across multiple customer locations. The investigation uncovered that an actor had used these devices to gain initial access to corporate networks. In two of the cases, the passwords for the devices were deployed without changing the default manufacturer’s passwords and in the third instance the latest security update had not been applied to the device | ['T1078'] |
When exploiting the intended targets, the threat actors used malicious .docx files to capture user credentials. The documents retrieved a file through a “file://” connection over SMB using Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) ports 445 or 139. When a user attempted to authenticate to the domain, the C2 server was provided with the hash of the password. Local users received a graphical user interface (GUI) prompt to enter a username and password, and the C2 received this information over TCP ports 445 or 139. Note: a file transfer is not necessary for a loss of credential information. Symantec’s report associates this behavior to the Dragonfly threat actors in this campaign. 1](link is external | ['T1187'] |
Otherwise, the malware bypasses UAC and escalates privileges with two different approaches – one for Windows 10 and the other for older versions | ['T1548.002'] |
The logging functions are hooked so that whenever the backdoor is used, nothing gets sent to the logging facility, leaving no trace of the backdoor in the log files on disk. If the backdoor is not in use, logging will behave normally and function calls will get redirected to the original function implementation | ['T1562.006'] |
The second part of API hooking hooks on “GetExtendedTcpTable. GetExtendedTcpTable” is used for retrieving a table that contains a list of TCP endpoints available to the application, and it is frequently used in some network-related commands, such as netstat. The purpose of the hook is to remove TCP endpoint records of certain PIDs. The second function, “GetRTTAndHopCount,” acts as the place to put the injected hooking code | ['T1049'] |
The output of the downloaded batch file is saved to “%PUBLIC%\Libraries\tp\<batch filename>.txt”. The script will then upload the output of this batch file by including the data in a sequence of DNS queries. The exfiltrates the output of the batch script by splitting up the data within the text file into chunks up to 23 bytes and sends the data within a series of DNS queries that have the following structure | ['T1030'] |
Installs UnionCryptoTrader in folder /Applications/UnionCryptoTrader.app/Contents/MacOS/ - Installs .unioncryptoupdater in folder /Applications/UnionCryptoTrader.app/Contents/Resources/ Note: the leading “.” makes it unlisted in the Finder app or default Terminal directory listing - Note: the leading “.” makes it unlisted in the Finder app or default Terminal directory listing - Executes a postinstall script Moves .vip.unioncrypto.plist to folder LaunchDaemons Changes the file permissions on the plist to Root Runs unioncryptoupdater Moves .unioncryptoupdater to folder /Library/UnionCrypto/unioncryptoupdater Makes .unioncryptoupdater executable - Moves .vip.unioncrypto.plist to folder LaunchDaemons - Changes the file permissions on the plist to Root - Runs unioncryptoupdater - Moves .unioncryptoupdater to folder /Library/UnionCrypto/unioncryptoupdater - Makes .unioncryptoupdater executable | ['T1564.001'] |
It uses GetlogicalDrives to get a bitmask of all the drives available on the system, then iterates over each possible drive letter | ['T1082'] |
Ryuk does not encrypt files from within its own process memory space, but injects into a remote process. Before injecting into a remote process, Ryuk attempts to adjust its token privileges to have the SeDebugPrivilege. Before injecting into a remote process, Ryuk also calls CreateToolhelp32Snapshot to enumerate all running processes. If a process is found that is not named csrss.exe, explorer.exe, lsaas.exe, or is running under NT AUTHORITY system account, Ryuk will inject itself into this single process. By ensuring that the process is not running under NT AUTHORITY, the developers are assuming the process is not running under another account and therefore can be written to. Ryuk uses a combination of VirtualAlloc, WriteProcessMemory and CreateRemoteThread to inject itself into the remote process | ['T1055'] |
Next, the third-stage DLL will load the "Waqybg" resource into memory. As the resource is stored in reverse byte order, the third-stage DLL will restore it by reversing the bytes and then proceed to decompress it. The decompressed data is the fourth stage wiper payload. After decompressing the data, the third-stage DLL copies a legitimate Windows utility "InstallUtil.exe" into the %TEMP% directory, creates a suspended process with it and injects the fourth-stage wiper into the process. Finally, it resumes the process and transfers the execution flow to the fourth-stage wiper. Creates InstallUtil.exe process | ['T1055'] |
Whitefly has consistently used a technique known as search order hijacking to run Vcrodat. This technique takes advantage of the fact that Windows does not require an application to provide a specific path for a DLL that it wishes to load. If no path is provided, Windows searches for the DLL in specific locations on the computer in a pre-defined order. Attackers can therefore give a malicious DLL the same name as a legitimate DLL but place it ahead of the legitimate version in the search order so that it will be loaded when Windows searches for it. Whitefly frequently delivers Vcrodat as a malicious DLL that has the same name as DLLs belonging to legitimate software from various security vendors. The group leverages search order hijacking to assure that its malicious DLLs will be executed. Targeting security applications could allow the attackers to gain higher privileges for the malware, since the vendor’s component may be run with elevated privileges | ['T1036.005'] |
The malware’s next action is to check if the execute privilege is SYSTEM. When the execute privilege is SYSTEM, the malware will get the process “Explorer.exe”, get the token of the user that launched the process and impersonate it. It is a downgrade from SYSTEM to another user with less privileges to avoid affecting the desktop of the SYSTEM user later | ['T1134.001'] |
The threat actors commonly created web shells on the intended targets’ publicly accessible email and web servers. The threat actors used three different filenames (“global.aspx, autodiscover.aspx and index.aspx) for two different webshells | ['T1505.003'] |
Currently LockerGoga does not support any worm-like capabilities that would allow it to self-propagate by infecting additional hosts on a target network. We have observed LockerGoga moving around a network via the server message block (SMB) protocol, which indicates the actors simply manually copy files from computer to computer | ['T1570'] |
Finally, command line tried to execute (iex is an alias for Invoke-Expression) the code downloaded from the IP address 104[.]168[.]237[.]21. Threat actors abused sslip.io for connection to C&C - a service that provides free IP to domain mapping to make SSL certificate generation easier for traffic encryption. While this service is legitimate and widely used, the malware abused it in an attempt at evading detection when connecting to C&C servers | ['T1102'] |
If the payload determines it is not running in a sandbox, it will attempt to install itself to the system to persistently execute | ['T1547.009'] |
With the file written to the system, the Trojan calls the "GetishideAbById" SOAP action to determine whether or not the C2 server wishes to execute the newly dropped file in a hidden window. This request is followed by a call to "GetisrunasAbById" to determine if the Trojan should use "runas" to execute the downloaded executable with elevated privileges, which would display the UAC dialog for the user to click | ['T1564.003'] |
Numbered Panda has a long list of high-profile victims and is known by a number of names including: DYNCALC, IXESHE, JOY RAT, APT-12, etc. Numbered Panda has targeted a variety of victims including but not limited to media outlets, high-tech companies, and multiple governments. Numbered Panda has targeted organizations in time-sensitive operations such as the Fukushima Reactor Incident of 2011, likely filling intelligence gaps in the ground cleanup/mitigation operations. One of the most interesting techniques that Numbered Panda likes to use is to dynamically calculate the Command and Control (C2) port by resolving a DNS. The malware will typically use two DNS names for communication: one is used for command and control; the other is used with an algorithm to calculate the port to communicate to. There are several variations of the algorithm used to calculate the C2 port, but one of the most common is to multiply the first two octets of the IP address and add the third octet to that value. This is typically represented as: (A * B) + C – common values might be 200.2.43.X, which would result in communication on port 443. Numbered Panda will frequently use blogs or WordPress in the c2 infrastructure, which helps to make the network traffic look more legitimate. CrowdStrike has observed Numbered Panda targeting high-tech, defense contractors, media organizations, and western governments | ['T1568.003'] |
Appending a file signature header to all encrypted data, prior to upload or download, by randomly selecting from the file types | ['T1027'] |
Figure 5 shows the splash image displayed by the Enigma protector prior to executing the malicious payload, which is a wallpaper image available at wallpaperswide.com. The splash screen feature acts as a sandbox evasion technique, as it requires user interaction in the form of clicking the screen before the malicious code runs | ['T1497.002'] |
Conti uses a multithreading technique to fast encrypt all the files. This routine takes seconds to just a few minutes depending on the number of files on the machine. Each sample has a unique extension that the malware adds to the encrypted files. While using Cybereason with prevention mode off to allow investigation of the ransomware execution, it is possible to see the encryption activity and the creation of new files | ['T1486'] |
Besides of fetching a list of scanning targets, Xbash will also request C2 server via URI “/p” to fetch a list of weak passwords for brute forcing | ['T1110.001'] |
Some versions of the Orz backdoor have 32- and 64-bit embedded DLLs, stored internally as base64 strings. Their purpose is to simply run another binary. These are used as loaders for future executable payloads, using the well-known process hollowing technique. To use the MockDll, the backdoor creates a configuration .ini file like that shown in Figure 14 | ['T1055.012', 'T1218.010'] |
The shellcode loader was observed on one infected device as updater.exe with the Metasploit-style service name APTYnDS1ABEuUHEA, indicating that it was installed as a service | ['T1553.002'] |
From one of the hosts, we discovered that the actor executed a credential harvesting tool named Responder and moved laterally using Windows commands. Lazarus overcame network segmentation, exfiltrating data from a completely isolated network segment cut off from the internet by compromising a router virtual machine, as we explain below under “Overcoming network segmentation | ['T1557.001'] |
1) If the malware was executed with the "install" command-line argument, which uses .NET Framwork’s InstallHelper method to install the malware as a service. 3) If no arguments are provided and the malware determines it is running in a Windows environment, it saves a DLL to the system that it injects into the explorer.exe process. The injected DLL executable loads the malware’s executable and runs it within memory of the explorer.exe process | ['T1055.001'] |
This static set of characteristics, combined with the minimal use of obfuscation in their phishing attacks, may benefit organizations that are potential targets for IRON TILDEN.ToolsTaegis™ XDR Adversary Software Coverage Tool | ['T1221'] |
Browser credential stealing: Capability to steal credentials (username and password) from the installed browsers, Microsoft Internet Explorer (MSIE), and Google Chrome browser. Figures 7 and 8 show the code sections responsible for stealing the credentials from MSIE and Chrome browser respectively | ['T1555.003'] |
The malware then grants itself debugging privileges by modifying its security token to add SeDebugPrivilege. This step is a prerequisite for the remainder of SUNSPOT’s execution, which involves reading other processes’ memory | ['T1134'] |
Interestingly, there is an option in the RC2CL module to turn off its backdoor functionality and act as a proxy. In this case, the malware turns off the Windows firewall and creates a server that relays communication between a client and C&C server, or between two clients | ['T1090.001'] |
The legitimate application is a digitally signed sample of Kaspersky Anti-Virus (AV) 6.0 for Windows Workstations. When the Kaspersky application is run, it loads a file named msi.dll, which is located within the same directory. The XOR-decode process, which skips zeroes, uses the single-byte key 0x88 | ['T1574.002'] |
In this attack, spear phishing was used as the initial infection vector. Before launching the attack, the group studied publicly available information about the targeted organization and identified email addresses belonging to various departments of the company | ['T1589.002'] |
In order to avoid raising suspicions from the victim, CSPY Downloader exploits a known UAC bypass technique that uses the SilentCleanup task to execute the binary with elevated privileges | ['T1548.002'] |
If the ransomware is not executed with administrator rights or if the infected host runs Windows Vista or later, it will attempt to elevate its privileges. In short, WastedLocker uses a well-documented UAC bypass method [1] [2]. It chooses a random file (EXE/DLL) from the Windows system32 folder and copies it to the %APPDATA% location under a different hidden filename. Next, it creates an alternate data stream (ADS) into the file named bin and copies the ransomware into it. WastedLocker then copies winsat.exe and winmm.dll into a newly created folder located in the Windows temporary folder | ['T1564.001'] |
A service that ensures Carbon’s persistency is created. Its name can either be “srservice”, “ipvpn” or “hkmsvc” depending of the operating system version running on the compromised machine | ['T1543.003'] |
After having registered the Print Processor, PipeMon restarts the print spooler service (spoolsv.exe). As a result, the malicious print process is loaded when the spooler service starts. Note that the Print Spooler service starts at each PC startup, which ensures persistence across system resets | ['T1543.003'] |
After patching, the threat actor can use the Skeleton Key password configured at the time of deployment to log in as any domain user. Legitimate users can still log in using their own passwords | ['T1556.001'] |
Create a Safe Array and copy the decrypted FoggyWeb backdoor bytes to the array. It then calls the Load() function for the current application domain to load the FoggyWeb DLL into the application domain. After the FoggyWeb DLL is loaded into the current application domain, the loader invokes the following method from the DLL: Microsoft.IdentityServer.WebExtension.WebHost. Create a Safe Array and copy the decrypted FoggyWeb backdoor bytes to the array. It then calls the Load() function for the current application domain to load the FoggyWeb DLL into the application domain. After the FoggyWeb DLL is loaded into the current application domain, the loader invokes the following method from the DLL: Microsoft.IdentityServer.WebExtension.WebHost | ['T1129'] |
In the first path, obtaining the SAML signing certificate normally entails first querying the private encryption key that resides on the AD FS container and then using that key to decrypt the signing certificate. The certificate can then be used to create illicit but valid SAML tokens that allow the actor to impersonate users, enabling them to access enterprise cloud applications and services | ['T1552.004', 'T1550'] |
The websites contain numerous articles and content to make them seem legitimate; in some cases the websites have over 10,000 individual news articles. Volexity has found the content is largely scraped and reposted in full from various other legitimate online news outlets. This appears to be done in an automated fashion and most likely through WordPress plugins. Numerous posted articles and images can be directly tracked back to other online blogs and newspapers; sometimes the byline or even watermark in images show directly where the article was sourced. In some cases, only a small number of pages on the site contains malicious code; in other cases, the profiling code is pervasive | ['T1608.004'] |
Checking for specific keyboards and languages is a known evasion tactic meant to avoid running on analysis systems not configured, as the actor’s targeted victim would be configured | ['T1614.001'] |
MSTIC has observed NICKEL drop their malware into existing installed software paths. They did this to make their malware appear to be files used for an installed application. The following are example paths | ['T1036.005'] |
If the bot is running with a regular user privilege, persistence is established using the registry “Run” method. The loader DLL component is written to “%APPDATA%\mswinload[.]dll” and a “mswinload” value is added to the “Run” key to execute ordinal #1 of the DLL with rundll32[.]exe | ['T1547.001'] |
In order to deploy an implant for the final payload, ScarCruft uses a multi-stage binary infection scheme. As a rule, the initial dropper is created by the infection procedure. One of the most notable functions of the initial dropper is to bypass Windows UAC (User Account Control) in order to execute the next payload with higher privileges. Afterwards, the installer malware creates a downloader and a configuration file from its resource and executes it. The downloader malware uses the configuration file and connects to the C2 server to fetch the next payload. In order to evade network level detection, the downloader uses steganography. The downloaded payload is an image file, but it contains an appended malicious payload to be decrypted | ['T1548.002'] |
Bisonal main module The DLL (pvcu.dll) is Bisonal malware but using a different cipher for C2 communication that other publicly documented samples. Booz Allen Hamilton in 2014 and AhnLab in 2015 reported on Bisonal using a simple XOR cipher to hide the C2 address strings in the body. The Bisonal sample we observed in this case employs the RC4 cipher with the key “78563412”. To date, all Bisonal samples we have seen using RC4 use this same key. The oldest sample we have dates to 2014, so this variant has been in the wild for several years. Adding to the change in encryption type, a large part of the code such as network communication procedures, and the persistence method have been re-written. For example, the Bisonal malware in 2012 used send() and recv() APIs to communicate with its C2 | ['T1573.001'] |
At the end of the encryption process, Pay2Key will also terminate the MS SQL service using the following command net stop mssqlserver > nul in order to release the files locked by the service | ['T1489'] |
As a previous write-up on H1N1 by Arbort Networks describes, the LINK command in this instance results in H1N1 downloading and executing a file from a remotely hosted URL using WinINet HTTP requests. The loader also has the functionality of downloading and executing a base64 encoded file contained in the response from the command and control server via the FILE command | ['T1105'] |
PLEAD also uses CVE-2017-7269, a buffer overflow vulnerability Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS) 6.0 to compromise the victim’s server. This is another way for them to establish a new C&C or HTTP server | ['T1190'] |
The Trojan does not encrypt the data sent via DNS beacons, rather it converts the ASCII characters into their hexadecimal values and includes these values in cleartext. The DNS beacons sent from the Helminth executable have the following structure, which is very similar to the script version | ['T1132.001'] |
In addition, the threat actors created a scheduled task named reset, which was designed to automatically log out of their newly created account every eight hours | ['T1053.005'] |
Wrote indicators based on observed attacker activity • Identified lateral movement, unique backdoors, credential theft, data theft, recon, persistence creation, etc | ['T1053.005'] |
The Conti Ransomware uses AES-256 encryption via a hard-coded public key. The unique factor is the use of multiple threads for the encryption process, which allows faster encryption as compared to other ransomwares. The ransomware uses a CreateIoCompletionPort() call to create 32 thread instances which work simultaneously to encrypt files. After encryption, the ransomware adds extension to all the encrypted files. It can be seen in the image below | ['T1486'] |
Over a few days' span, the threat actors install remote access tools on additional systems based upon the results of the network reconnaissance. They use At.exe to schedule tasks to run self-extracting RAR archives, which install either HttpBrowser or PlugX. CTU researchers observed the threat actors collecting Cisco VPN profiles to use when accessing the victim's network via VPN (see Figure 13 | ['T1053.002', 'T1133'] |
The organizational backup server was among the first targeted. When Ryuk was detected and stopped on the backup server, the attackers used the icacls command to modify access control, giving them full control of all the system folders on the server | ['T1222.001'] |
This thread searches for for files with the following extensions on fixed drives and sends them to C2 every 60 minutes | ['T1020'] |
The delivery document uses the XLSX extension typically used by OpenXML documents, but the file itself is actually an OLE (XLS) document. The file extension to file type discrepancy was caused by the actor using Excel's built-in encryption capability, which stores XLSX ciphertext and the information needed for decryption in an OLE document | ['T1221'] |
We identified new MSIL components deployed by Zebrocy. While recent Zebrocy versioning was 7.1, some of the related Zebrocy modules that drop file-stealing MSIL modules we call Covfacy were v7.0. For example, one sent out to a handful of countries identifies network drives when they are added to target systems, and then RC4-like-encrypts and writes certain file metadata and contents to a local path for later exfiltration. The stealer searches for files 60mb and less with these extensions | ['T1083'] |
Earlier versions of UPPERCUT used the hard-coded string “this is the encrypt key” for Blowfish encryption when communicating with a C2. However, in the latest version, the keys are hard-coded uniquely for each C2 address and use the C2’s calculated MD5 hash to determine which key to use, as shown in Figure 10 | ['T1573.001'] |
With this approach, the luring message shown in the Figure 2 now serves another purpose. Not only does it lure the victim into enabling the macros, but it also is assigned an alternate text: “fkwarning”, as seen in Figure 5. The macro has code to check this attribute to make sure the luring message shape object is present. If this object is not found, the macro will exit without downloading additional payloads | ['T1497'] |
That new instance of RegAsm.exe is then responsible for handling the brunt of the malicious activity (data harvesting, exfiltration). We can also see frequent use of ‘Process Hollowing’ as an injection method. Process Hollowing allows for the creation or manipulation of processes through which sections of memory are unmapped (hollowed) with that space then being reallocated with the desired malicious code | ['T1055.012'] |
To deploy the file injector, the instrumentor downloads additional payloads to be injected into a benign process | ['T1055.012'] |
The program copies itself as <Hangul full path>HncReporter.exe and changes the default program association in the registry to open HWP documents. To do so, it alters following registry values | ['T1546.001'] |
Another tool written in Go, GoldFinder was most likely used as a custom HTTP tracer tool that logs the route or hops that a packet takes to reach a hardcoded C2 server. When launched, the malware issues an HTTP request for a hardcoded IP address (e.g. hxxps://185[.]225[.]69[.]69/) and logs the HTTP response to a plaintext log file (e.g. loglog.txt created in the present working directory). GoldFinder uses the following hardcoded labels to store the request and response information in the log file | ['T1119'] |
Another interesting technique this malware uses is Visual Studio’s Resource Manager. This is a feature built into Visual Studio that allows one to attach basically any file to the original binary and get a pointer to its data with a few simple API calls. Siloscape uses this method to write the Tor archive to the disk, as well as the unzip binary used to open the archive. It also uses Tor to securely connect to its C2 | ['T1140'] |
The source code of SUNBURST was likely sanitized before being included in SUNSPOT. The use of generic variable names, pre-obfuscated strings, and the lack of developer comments or disabled code is similar to what could be obtained after decompiling a backdoored Orion binary, as illustrated in Figure 2, which provides a comparison between the injected source code (top) and a decompilation output (bottom | ['T1027.005'] |
Ebury sequentially tries the generated domain names until it finds one that has a TXT record set by the operator. To verify the ownership of the domain, Ebury checks whether the TXT record can be decrypted using an RSA public key embedded in its code | ['T1140'] |
The first backdoor that the TeleBots group relied heavily on was Python/TeleBot.A, which was rewritten from Python in the Rust programming language. The functionality remains the same: it is a standard backdoor that uses the Telegram Bot API in order to receive commands from, and send responses to, the malware operator | ['T1102.002'] |
After the extensive validation described above, the backdoor enters its main execution stage. At its core, the backdoor is a very standard one that receives instructions from the C2 server, executes those instructions, and sends back information. The type of commands that can be executed range from manipulating of registry keys, to creating processes, and deleting files, etc. effectively providing the attackers with full access to the device, especially since it’s executing from a trusted, signed binary | ['T1112'] |
Get.exe appears to be a custom tool used to scan IP-ranges for HTTP service information. NCC Group and Fox-IT decompiled the tool for analysis. This showed the tool was written in the Python scripting language and packed into a Windows executable file. Though Fox-IT didn’t find any direct occurrences of the tool on the internet, the decompiled code showed strong similarities with the source code of a tool named GetHttpsInfo. GetHttpsInfo scans the internal network for HTTP & HTTPS services. The reconnaissance tool getHttpsInfo is able to discover HTTP servers within the range of a network | ['T1046'] |
In July 2018, Unit 42 analyzed a targeted attack using a novel file type against at least one government agency in the Middle East. It was carried out by a previously unpublished threat group we track as DarkHydrus. Based on our telemetry, we were able to uncover additional artifacts leading us to believe this adversary group has been in operation with their current playbook since early 2016. Once opened, Excel will retrieve whatever object is at the URL inside the file. These files have most recently been found in use by criminals to deliver commodity RATs such as Flawed Ammyy. In DarkHydrus's case, the preferred payload retrieved in their previous attacks were exclusively open-source legitimate tools which they abuse for malicious purposes, such as Meterpreter and Cobalt Strike. However, in this instance, it appears that this group used a custom PowerShell based payload that we call RogueRobin | ['T1566.001'] |
Some payloads leveraged DLL side loading, a technique that involves running a legitimate, typically digitally signed, program that loads a malicious DLL. The DLL acts as a stub loader, which loads and executes shell code. BRONZE UNION previously used this technique to enable execution of PlugX and HttpBrowser tools in a way that is challenging for network defenders to detect | ['T1574.002'] |
To execute the main downloaded payload, the loader tries to masquerade as a legitimate Windows service, claiming in its fake description, that it is used to support packed applications | ['T1036.004'] |
Prior to downloading secondary payloads, CSPY Downloader initiates an extensive series of checks to determine if it is being debugged or running in a virtual environment, by searching for specific virtualization-related loaded modules, the process PEB structure, various file paths, registry keys, and memory | ['T1497.001'] |
When executed, the malware first establishes a SOCKS5 connection to 192.157.198.103 using TCP port 1913. The malware sends the SOCKS5 connection request "05 01 00" and verifies the server response starts with "05 00". The malware then requests a connection to 192.184.60.229 on TCP port 81 using the command "05 01 00 01 c0 b8 3c e5 00 51" and verifies that the first two bytes from the server are "05 00" (c0 b8 3c e5 is the IP address and 00 51 is the port in network byte order | ['T1104'] |
PIONEER KITTEN’s namesake operational characteristic is its reliance on SSH tunneling, through open-source tools such as Ngrok and the adversary’s custom tool SSHMinion, for communication with implants and hands-on-keyboard activity via Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP | ['T1572'] |
This is likely to make it appear as if nothing is amiss to the user (as high CPU usage is a red flag of cryptocurrency-mining malware | ['T1014'] |
The VBShower backdoor has the same philosophy of the validator version of PowerShower. Its aim is to complicate forensic analysis by trying to delete all the files contained in “%APPDATA%\..\Local\Temporary Internet Files\Content.Word” and “%APPDATA%\..\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\Content.Word | ['T1070.004'] |
The VBScript in turn runs rundll32.exe, activating the Cobalt Strike DLL (step #5) using a clean parent/child process tree completely disconnected from the SolarWinds process. Finally, the VBScript removes the previously created IFEO value to clean up any traces of execution (step #6) and also deletes the following registry keys related to HTTP proxy | ['T1070', 'T1112'] |
The threat actor also attempted to use OWA account credentials likely acquired during an earlier phase of the intrusion. BRONZE UNION appeared to leverage other compromised infrastructure, presumably to make reentry attempts seem legitimate. This attempt illustrates the importance of thorough planning when conducting an eviction and the need for continuous vigilance for evidence of reentry | ['T1133'] |
Next, the loader checks that it’s not running in a virtualized environment (VMWare or Hyper-V) or under a debugger. For the hardware virtualization check, the loader obtains the hardware device list and checks if the MD5 of the vendor ID is equal to a predefined list | ['T1497.001'] |
If the bot is running as admin on Windows XP or 7, persistence is established using application shimming [1]. It uses a method very similar to the one described by FireEye in their blog post “To SDB, Or Not To SDB: FIN7 Leveraging Shim Databases for Persistence” [3]. A shim database (SDB) is created (Figure 13) to patch services[.]exe with the loader code and then installed with sdbinst[.]exe | ['T1546.011'] |
To suppress the User Access Control (UAC) prompt that normally occurs during privilege elevation, the malware uses a UAC bypass technique first documented in August 2016. This bypass requires temporarily setting either the registry key HKCU\Software\Classes\ms-settings\shell\open\command on Windows 10, or the registry key HKCU\Software\Classes\mscfile\shell\open\command on Windows 7 to execute the malware. Once the registry key is set, the malware launches the Windows event viewer process eventvwr.msc, which will inadvertently launch the malware set in the registry keys with elevated privileges | ['T1548.002'] |
Malicious actors commonly maintain persistence on a victim’s system by installing the malware-as-a-service. Volgmer queries the system and randomly selects a service in which to install a copy of itself. The malware then overwrites the ServiceDLL entry in the selected service's registry entry. In some cases, HIDDEN COBRA actors give the created service a pseudo-random name that may be composed of various hardcoded words | ['T1543.003'] |
The first stage shellcode contains an interesting NOP sled with alternative instructions, which was most likely designed in such a way to avoid detection by antivirus products looking for large NOP blocks inside flash files | ['T1027'] |
The C2 server address is not embedded directly inside Tomiris: instead, it connects to a signalization server that provides the URL and port to which the backdoor should connect. Then Tomiris sends GET requests to that URL until the C2 server responds with a JSON object of the following structure | ['T1568'] |
First, it captures the desktop window and sets the background color to black. It then writes "All your files are encrypted. For more information see “README-FOR-DECRYPT.txt" with DrawText API to a bitmap image and saves it as "encr.bmp" in the public pictures folder. Finally, it changes the desktop wallpaper to the new image using the SystemParametersInfoAPI with the SPI_SETDESKWALLPAPER flag | ['T1491.001'] |
FIN7 has consistently utilized legally purchased code signing certificates to sign their CARBANAK payloads. Finally, FIN7 has leveraged several new techniques that we have not observed in other CARBANAK related activity | ['T1553.002'] |
This code invokes time twice, with a sleep in between …then compares if the differences between the two calls to time match the amount of time that was system slept for. To detect sandboxes that patch (speedup) calls to sleep | ['T1497.003'] |
At the beginning of October 2021, Proofpoint researchers identified public samples of Gamaredon RTF template injection documents which impersonated the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense. This tactic is consistent with reporting on this APT group that links Gamaredon to the Russian FSB operating in the Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol. The files communicate with the domain pretence77.glorious[.]nonima[.]ru which also was a remote template delivery URL used by several Microsoft Office Word documents that impersonated Ukrainian government organizations. These Office files communicate with actor infrastructure using a URI pattern previously observed among Gamaredon malicious Microsoft Office phishing documents. Specifically, the Microsoft Office documents used remote template injection to retrieve malicious payload files using URIs with the directory “/ELENAPC/principles/” on several occasions. Additionally, in several instances the resources retrieved delivered an MP3 file as a delivery resource | ['T1221'] |
The main C2 loop starts after the initial upload of the reconnaissance data, iterating once every approximately 30 seconds. For the first five minutes, each iteration will capture a screenshot of the display and upload it to the "normal" subdirectory with an encoded timestamp as the filename. After the first five minutes, the screenshot uploads once every five minutes | ['T1113'] |
Since the FoggyWeb loader version.dll is an unmanaged application, it cannot directly access the virtual runtime environment that the managed AD FS code is executed within. The loader overcomes this limitation and loads the backdoor alongside the AD FS code by leveraging the CLR hosting interfaces and APIs to access the virtual runtime environment within which the AD FS code is executed | ['T1106'] |
The instrumentor script also performs a cleanup of the cookies for Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge browsers. This activity is performed after the implants are in place to force users to reauthenticate. This is done by simply terminating any browser processes running on the system and then deleting the cookie files on disk | ['T1070.004'] |
If the bot is running with admin privileges on a Windows version newer than Windows 7, persistence is established using the registry “image file execution options” method | ['T1546.012'] |
Daserf — This backdoor has the functionality of a remote shell and can be used to execute commands, upload and download data, capture screenshots, and log keystrokes. It uses RC4 encryption and custom Base64 encoding to obfuscate HTTP traffic. Datper uses an RC4-encrypted configuration to obfuscate HTTP traffic. xxmm (also known as Minzen) — This RAT and likely successor to Daserf AES-encrypts HTTP communications using a one-time encryption key. As of this publication, BRONZE BUTLER demonstrates a preference for concurrently using Datper and xxmm in its operations. Source: Secureworks) - RarStar — This custom tool uploads RAR archives to a specified URL as POST data (see Figure 6). RarStar encodes the POST data using Base64 and a custom XOR algorithm. RarStar HTTP POST request. T-SMB Scan — This SMB scanning tool was originally published on a Chinese program-sharing website (pudn.com). BRONZE BUTLER removed its help message functionality. When exfiltration is complete, the uploader (or Datper or xxmm) immediately uses the del command to delete the RAR archives. Search proxy log files for evidence of web server scanning using the URL patterns associated with BRONZE BUTLER activity | ['T1573.001'] |
An analysis of these files found that they all leveraged a remote template injection technique that allows the documents to pull down the malicious code once they are opened. This allows the attacker to have control over what content is sent back to the victim in an otherwise benign document. Recent examples of the remote template “dot” file URLs these documents use include the following | ['T1221'] |
These anti-forensic recovery commands are quite interesting and appear to make use of an undocumented feature of the vssadmin resize command. While the first command in Figure 2 above, vssadmin Delete Shadows /all /quiet, is commonly used by ransomware, the command option vssadmin resize shadowstorage is rarely used. In situations where shadow copies were not created by vssadmin, but by third-party applications (such as backup software), vssadmin can display an error and not delete the backups. Try removing them with the backup application which created them. The vssadmin resize shadowstorage command is a “hack” that relies on vssadmin to delete storage when the shadow copies are resized. It forces the shadow copies to be deleted regardless of their context. The command works by resizing the default shadow volume size from 10 percent to 401 MB (the minimum size is 300 MB). Then the shadow storage is set to unbounded, which allows it to use all available disk space. The shadow copies are then deleted by calling the command vssadmin Delete Shadows /all /quiet a second time | ['T1490'] |
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